[EitB LVIII Spoilers] coldrain prolongs the Age of Fire

[coldrain]

Turn 39

My western exploring warrior (combat 2) keeps having excellent luck while defending against barbarians. During turn roll he survived an attack from a giant spider, and moved this turn on the adjacent watchtower hill for vision and to heal + fortify:


The warrior had gone to a dead end in south, behind the mountain range, but finally I found something interesting: The vampires! Xist10 is lowest in score, but looking at graphs he is keeping up with me in crop yield and production. Surprisingly he hasn’t changed any civics yet (God-king and/or agrarianism would be achievable by now, as I have done). I checked KTB status and he has hunting, AH + education on me. I would bet that he took hunting as a free tech, just as I did in previous game. He could be rushing straight to code of laws for the governor’s manors? Vampire lands are quite far away, so I’m not worried about a moroi rush or anything of the sort. I still need to do the opponent analysis, I keep forgetting to finish it.


Back at home, settler finished and is moving to city site marked “C”. Two warriors moved there already, while the mutated scout keeps vision on the watch tower. Mud golem and missionary are standing 1NW of High Wall, ready to road towards the new spot. Capital started building second mud golem and rearranged tiles to build it in two turns. This delays the great sage by 2 turns, but I’m still on track to complete next settler + masonry within 9 turns as the great person spawns. The question still remains if I want to wait about 7 turns after that to build fifth city before using my world spell. I decided to save gold for two turns after researching Kilmorph to have an event fund in hand, as I didn’t need AH so desperately. Let’s see if I will regret this decision when horses are revealed… Demos after ending turn:

[shallow_thought]

Still following, glad for the reporting.

Who do you think has the high GNP?

[coldrain]

Still following, glad for the reporting.

Who do you think has the high GNP?

Rival best GNP jumped to around 70 on the next turn. It could be a philosophical player who got T39 great sage for an academy presumably, so maybe Aurorarcher? Largest city is pop 9 too, and I think Kuriotates is the logical culprit there too.

[coldrain]

Turn 42



Founded Undead Settle(ment) on T41 and popped borders with the missionary. Animal husbandry completed and masonry is next. Horses appeared southwest of High Wall, third ring border expansion will catch them in about 15 turns (no need for horses yet, unless worked by a new city). Six turns until great sage spawns and settler for city #4 a turn later. Next city location is by the pigs on plains hill most likely: It has great food and production thanks to the two pastures and hills, but no commerce at all. That should be fine since I feel like growth and production are the limiting factors to faster development for the time being. Rival best city is pop 10 now (Kuriotate megapolis?).

[coldrain]

Turn 45



Working the new riverside mine at High Wall pushed masonry into a 3 turn research which just completed. Saving gold for at least a turn to stock up gold before running 100% science for a while with the academy coming soon. Three turns until great sage is born. Settler for city #4 due in four turns + travel time means that I will cast my world spell (Gifts of Nantosuelta) on T50. Exploring warrior near xist10 lands had to dodge a barbarian scorpion clan goblin while healing from the spider encounter. Speaking of xist, he swapped to agrarianism this turn but not into any other civics. I wonder why he didn’t switch into apprenticeship at the same time? In this game speed one can change at least two civics with only one turn of anarchy, so he wouldn’t have lost anything there?


Looking at demos, I’m close to the average in production and crop yield while second in GNP. I’m not entirely happy with this, I thought the added advantage of mud golem at start would mean a more significant lead. Maybe the lack of immediate 4 food tile improvement (or better) until calendar was researched hindered me more than I thought? Maybe I’m unintentionally slowing my growth curve more than I intended in the name of long term optimizations. Here’s the list of decisions that has slowed me down in the short term:

• Picked a civ without hunting (best food tech for this start) or calendar (most versatile growth option in many cases, depends on the amount of rivers and grassland)
  
• Improved both wineries first and worked them before other food tiles. Not much other options after locking in the civ.
  
• Waited until pop 7 to start settler (delayed city #2). I actually like this approach when I go to get God-king fast, combined with mines for max production.
  
• The previous point was slightly diluted by hiring sage specialist at pop 7 in favour of a grassland mine (lose 6 food-hammers due to rounding with God-king)
  
• Switched civics to God-king and agrarianism as soon as possible, meaning both times had to sit through a turn of anarchy.
  
• Delay world spell until four cities established (could have timed to use after third city founded)
  

Advantages I gained with my choices so far:

• Great civ for economic play in early/mid game (mud golem super worker, excellent world spell, financial trait)
  
• Dwarven units for easier early game exploration (hill movement bonus, not applied to golems)
  
• Working double wines possibly meant I got God-king and first religion a bit earlier? Not sure if there was competition for founding.
  

Optimizations for long term, required some of the sacrifices mentioned above:

• Relatively early academy to be founded on T48 without being philosophical or using pacifism
  
• World spell to be used after gaining the guaranteed great sage, to avoid rolling an engineer instead. Delaying the spell means I get four golden hammers -> potentially more powerful God-king golden hammer capital a bit later.
  
• Arcane trait for building up a mage army in mid game.
  

 
We shall see how much my economy and production will improve once I finally get the academy and use the world spell. I did simulate different starting tech options before locking in my civ choice, so I’m aware of the trade-offs I made when choosing this approach. I was just a bit surprised after founding my third city how much better the competition seems to be doing based on demos. Map seems to be quite large with a lot of space to expand to, so I should do well once I get the academy + hammer boosted capital to fuel expansion and to unlock important tech paths.

[shallow_thought]

Was it worth taking some hits to get key components for your plan (religion, Worldspell playoff, specific Great People) in place?

I think so. Snowball is everything, but it's not always about raw tiles / food cities. You've got a lot coming online in the next few turns.

[coldrain]

Yes, after getting the academy + golden hammers demos should catch up quite nicely. And I should have some interesting options for the eventual great engineer(s) from the settled specialists.

[Qgqqqqq]

I haven't followed your micro, but I would have farmed the sheep before improving the wines in your position.

Can I ask what your plan is for the Golden Hammers?

[coldrain]

Farmng the sheep first would have meant losing a worker turn both moving there and back north to the wines. The added food could have been worth it, I didn't do any calculations on that approach.

As for the plan with the golden hammers: I'm building new scouts to move them to capital ASAP and join as engineer specialists. I did consider saving one hammer for the +1 attack strengh bonus when attached to a unit. I think saivng a hammer is not strictly needed here since the map looks so large and keeping one in case of early rushes doesn't feel necessary.

And since I generate a great sage first, all four hammers in same city will get the first great engineer in a reasonable time (about 14-15 turns or so). Bone Palace is the obvious target to rush with engineer, if I include philosophy in the tech path. Mines of Galdur is a potential target too if I delve deeper into Kilmorph religion. One of the arcane towers would be excellent to get (Tower of Necromancy or Elements) but acquiring all of the required mana sources is not that easy.

[coldrain]

Turn 53

A quick flashback to turn 49, when I founded city #4, Pit of Hollows, built the academy at capital and cast my world spell:


I switched tiles earlier in capital to finish settler a turn earlier than previously estimated. Got four golden hammers and immediately settled two of them to the capital. I had completed a fresh scout in High Wall, which picked up the second hammer and brought it to cap. I had to delete the scout to drop the hammer, but combining them all to God-king capital is well worth it. Demos on that turn jumped quite nicely (hammers settled as engineers, stopped working a sage specialist in cap, founded new city):

Demos on T49:

 

Back to current turn of 53:


Warrior in west followed xist10 borders a bit to north and then looped back east. I met Aurorarcher warrior in the north-west and bumped into Bing borders this turn. I suspected someone was located around here based on the positioning of the sun mana feature. It looks like I was among the first to found fourth city, at least comparing with the known civs. From KTB I can see that two players have hunting and education, one has HBR. I’m about to complete education soon, previous tech was festivals. At home, couple of cities already completed the cheap markets and I’m building Deruptus Brewing house (will provide ale for happiness):


After markets, more settlers will be added into queue and perhaps some warriors too. Two new scouts picked the remaining hammers and hauled them to capital:


11 turns until first great engineer. Academy is boosting research quite nicely, soon I will add cottages too. I need more happiness in addition to the upcoming ale, the gems spot in east is a high priority soon. Since there haven’t been any free spreads of Kilmorph, I’ll probably convert during first golden age a bit later. Using great engineer for Bone Palace for this seems like a good idea, although hunting or HBR might be needed before philosophy. I need to check if the Illian world spell (stasis) blocks golden ages, or just puts them “on hold” to be resumed after the temporary freeze of production/research. Demos and graphs: